1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates generally to shelves having a mechanism for moving an item thereon via gravity. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to shelves that may be inclined and have rollers thereon and a mechanism to advance an item on the shelves forward to an area where purchasers may see and retrieve the item.
2. Description of Related Art
Items, such as, medicines packaged in boxes or bottles, may be displayed in rows on a shelf having a mechanism that advances the items so that when one of the items is removed, another of the items is advanced and remains displayed. One such configuration is a spring-pusher system that includes a spring-loaded pusher member. When an item within a row is removed, the spring-loaded pusher member urges another item to the position of the removed item. Undesirably however, the force of the spring-loaded pusher member on the items often makes it difficult to remove the items from the row and/or to insert items into the row (either by restocking or by a customer who has changed her/his mind). The force of the spring-loaded pusher member of such systems can result in package damage, particularly when inserting packages and even more so for the front-most package in the row (causing product and revenue loss), as well as causing difficulty in replacing packages by customers who change their minds in product selection. This second problem results in a customer often throwing packages everywhere or, at the least, leaving packages in an untidy state. Also undesirably, the cost of installation of such spring-loaded pusher member shelf systems is quite high; this is a deterrent for many potential customers (stores) to install these systems.
Another type of shelving system utilizes a gravity actuated roller pin system. Undesirably, such shelving systems are made from numerous parts, e.g., 18 to 24 parts that must be assembled, thereby increasing labor and cost for both installation and repair. These shelving systems typically include separate roller tracks having individual metal backing supports that may undesirably bend and/or twist due to their individual roller track design. The bending and/or twisting can cause items to fall off of the display, which is also undesirable.
Additionally, such conventional gravity roller shelving systems have rollers loosely disposed on a base portion, each roller in its own holding chamber or cut-out and a retainer strip is placed over all of the rollers in a row in order to secure them to the base portion. Thus, if one roller needs to be removed and replaced, the retainer strip has to be removed, which frees all of the rollers from the base portion allowing other rollers to accidentally dislodge from the base. Moreover, the retainer strip placed over the rollers is attached to the assembly via screws, and should one of the screws become loose all of the rollers can become misaligned, inhibiting or preventing rollers from rotating.
An improved gravity roller shelving system having a simplified design and more efficient operation is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,376,154.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, for state-of-the-art shelving systems, thinner, light-weight and/or small merchandise packages (as used herein, the term “merchandise package” includes merchandise with or without a package) present problems for gravity roller shelves or other shelving systems. These types of merchandise packages tend to not advance forward correctly along the rollers, or not forward at all, because the merchandise packages have insufficient weight. This results in the situation where the forward-urging gravitational force cannot overcome the friction between the merchandise package and the shelf. Furthermore, these merchandise packages tend to fall down backward when one pushes packages back to insert another package between front stop and front-most package. Merchandise package types, such as digestives, eye care, and coughs and cold remedies contain large quantities of thinner, light-weight and/or small packages. A workable, effective and economic solution for these merchandise packages would be desirable.
Thus, there is a need for a shelving system that moves thinner, lighter weight and/or small merchandise packages forward as the front-most merchandise package is removed from the shelf, allows for efficient and easy re-stocking of merchandise on the shell without allowing the lightweight merchandise packages to fall backwards as the shelf is re-stocked, does not compromise space within the shelf so that the items need not be replenished more often (as is the case with a spring-loaded pusher member), and allows for easy removal of the thinner, lighter weight and/or smaller merchandise packages.